


your eyes shine like a thousand stars (baby, i wanna dance in the cosmos with you)

by wavephm



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Angst, But just a little, F/F, Fluff, also no capital letters because I Am Gay, and carol's deep in love, and i'm posting this in six parts because i need instant gratification lmao, and so do we, because they deserve all the content, i love my two gaybies, ig a little bit of character death but nothing major, no smut because that is scary for me to write, so if you don't like it this is your final warning, they're trying so hard, this is literally just carol and val being girlfriends
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-07-23
Updated: 2020-05-28
Packaged: 2020-07-11 21:04:05
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 5,676
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19934473
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wavephm/pseuds/wavephm
Summary: or five times carol almost says i love you and the one time she finally doesjust my two girls falling in love because i said so.beta read by @ashitheviolinist7, love you bb.enjoy (hopefully)!





	1. girl, you know you make my cold heart warm with a touch

**Author's Note:**

> i'm sorry but the first, like, 300 words are really bad but i pinky promise it will get better. the chapter title is from nuts by lil peep x lil skil, if you haven't listened to the song i recommend. if you think of it from a lesbian point of view (which i always do) it is very gay.

so, carol was not having the time of her life. 

she had been in the middle of helping a family in dervani when she heard shouts coming from the forest floor. she flew down, curious, and was met with the sight of people sprinting through trees to reach their loved ones. it took her a moment to figure out what was going on before it dawned on her. there were a lot more people around her than there had been about two minutes ago. 

some might even say double. 

she raced as fast as she could to earth, because, knowing tony stark, that was where the chaos was. ripping through an entire fucking ship wasn’t particularly painful, but her panic at seeing a skinny sixteen year old kid carrying all six infinity stones definitely gave her a heart attack. 

carol landed heavily in front of him, and at this point she was certain that he had some sort of superpower because there was no way that a kid trembling this hard wouldn’t have fallen over already (not to mention the spider insignia seemed like a dead giveaway for an avenger).

‘hi, i-i’m peter p-p-parker’ he stuttered out, half from exertion and half from fear, and she smiled down at him, trying to ignore the fact that she had just raced halfway across the universe.

‘hey, peter parker. you got something for me?’ she grinned, trying to calm her racing heart. they were only at the very beginning of the battle, now was definitely not the time to let her emotions get the best of her. carol shuddered as she grasped the gauntlet, smiling at peter once more.

‘i don’t know how you’re gonna get through all that’ he picked himself up and brushed the dust off his legs. carol was about to ask herself the same thing when she heard the witch and okoye say,

‘don’t worry, she’s got help.’ she turned around to find the various women in the avengers surrounding her, including the witch, potts, and -

a really beautiful woman on a winged horse. despite the circumstances, she gaped for a moment. carol caught her eye and froze. the woman smirked and winked at her before rearing her horse. after a very long couple of seconds, carol snapped out of it and lifted off the ground. together, they charged forward, ripping through thanos’ soldiers. 

carol couldn’t help but keep her eyes on the horse-riding woman. there was something about her that she couldn’t quite place. on one hand, she was riding a horse like some sort of fairy princess (god knows she had the looks of a mythical being). on the other hand, carol had just seen her rip open a metal snake with a ten-foot long sword, screaming various expletives the entire time. so, yeah, this mystery woman was really hot.

it wasn’t until everything was over that she calmed down enough to stop the ringing in her ears. all thoughts of the beautiful sword-wielding woman left her mind once she laid eyes on thanos. if her time with the kree had taught her anything, it was how to control her emotions, but seeing the titan almost threw all of that out of the window. who did he think he was, bringing suffering to so many people simply because he believed it was his mission in life?

at the moment, carol was camped out by the shore of the now-empty lake, pretending to look at the sunset to get a moment of peace. unsurprisingly, a camp full of egotistical superheros from across the galaxy was very, very loud and very, very filled with testosterone. carol was lost in her thoughts when a voice startled her out of it.

‘so, you’re the captain marvel everyone’s been talking about, huh?’ carol whirled around, cursing herself for getting caught off guard, and was completely unprepared for the beautiful face that awaited her. her mouth dropped open a little bit as she got her first good look at the mysterious warrior from earlier. 

the woman’s long hair was tied up in some sort of complicated braid-bun affair that made carol thank god for her short hair. she was wearing a sort of blue and silver armor that carol hadn’t seen before, and her accent sounded british. the woman looked to be in the same shape carol was: covered in blood, black and red, as well as dirt, dust, and singe marks. 

finally, carol realized that she had been staring for too long to be polite, on earth or anywhere else, and managed to school her features into a sort of tired-smirk-smile that she hoped looked inviting and did not make her look like an idiot.

‘that’s me,’ she said, ‘just to clarify, you are the one with the flying horse?’ the woman laughed before holding out her hand.

‘my name’s brunhilde, but you can call me val. and yes, i was the one on the pegasus. his name’s aragorn, in case you ever meet him. he won’t respond to anything else,’ the woman paused for a moment, dark eyes assessing carol, before continuing. ‘should i call captain marvel, or have you got a name?”

it was carols turn to laugh, running her hand through her hair in an almost self-conscious way. of course she wasn’t trying to impress brunhilde, but it wouldn’t hurt for her to make a good impression - to keep up appearances as captain marvel, obviously. carol took the warrior’s hand, and she could have sworn she felt a current run through their joined hands before she dropped it and responded,

‘you can call me carol’.

‘well, carol, would you mind if i sat down? my ass is killing me, and i’ve got two bottles of hard asgardian liquor that have my name written all over them’. carol smiled and said,

‘of course, brunhilde-’

‘-val’

‘...val, i’d be happy to let you sit with me, but only if you share some of this asgardian liquor you prize so highly’.

[tl;dr they got super drunk and fucked in the back of val’s ship]


	2. here in the ashes, your soul cries out

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> lmao um, this is really late and really fluffy, so that's exciting for everyone. i'm also struggling with some serious writers block so, um, yeah, this fic might take a while for me to actually finish oof. also, i'm a little bit worried someone might say, like, 'BuT tHiS iSn'T iN ChArAcTeR fOr tHeM' or something similar, and to that i say that since they don't have any actual screentime together i can do whatever i want. on that note, enjoy!
> 
> title from thunderclouds by lsd

‘val, what exactly are we doing in the middle of the arizona desert?’ carol asked, every couple of words impacted by a bump from the gravel road beneath the pickup truck and val’s limited driving experience.

‘just trust me, babe, okay?’ the asgardian glanced across the car at carol and grinned that stupidly hot little smirk that she always did when she wanted something. just then, they drove directly over a pothole, and val shouted ‘shit’ loudly enough for carol to wince. she supposed that val should be a little more careful, given that the beat-up gray pickup they were using was borrowed from another asgardian, but then again, val was the asgardian queen. she could probably afford to buy another.

carol had decided to stay on earth for a couple months after the disaster with thanos. the galactic governments needed some time to adjust back to normal life, and since there was only one of her, she wasn’t super necessary when it came to rebuilding planets from the ground up. she had nearly failed arial strategy back at military school, so she wasn’t going to be much help when it came to diplomacy. what did it matter if she stayed earth-side while the entire universe got their shit together?

so she headed back to earth and lived at the newest avengers compound, funded by t’challa and shuri, along with whichever avengers were left. she spent some time with maria and monica, repairing their friendship and getting to know the ‘new’ them, and training the seemingly endless supply of young adults aged seventeen to twenty-five who all looked like they had seen hell and clawed their way back.

and, of course, developed her relationship with val. after that first night, they hadn’t really talked except for val to ask how much sugar she wanted in her coffee. apparently, neither of them were morning people, especially after a night of extremely heavy drinking. it wasn’t until the third time that they met up at an assembly of the avengers and ended up in each other’s beds that they realized they needed to talk about it.

so, slowly, they began to build a relationship from the ashes of the old earth. they became more and more public, giving each other kisses in between training sessions and holding hands outside the avengers compound. unlike all of the other relationships carol had ever been in, dating val was easy. she didn’t need labels and didn’t care what other people thought, and when carol asked if she could call val her girlfriend, the warrior grinned and allowed it if she could call carol hers. 

it was nice to belong to someone again. 

this whole debacle (okay, debacle was a bit of an exaggeration, but if the overdramatic lesbian in her was going to come out any time it was going to be on a mysterious date with her girlfriend, who was the most extravagant person she knew when she wasn’t hungover) started earlier that afternoon. val had ambushed her as soon as she entered her room, telling her that she needed to shower because they were on a schedule and didn’t have time ‘to fuck around or any other bullshit like that’. 

though each avenger was assigned their own dorm, whether or not they lived on-site, val had all but moved in to carol’s room after the first month of their relationship. she said it was because she wouldn’t have to cook breakfast in the morning, but carol knew it was because val missed her late at night. not that val would ever admit it. she would rather give up drinking.

though val was the queen of asgard, she had decided to move a lot of the younger asgardians to the compound to train them, and accompanied them so she could integrate herself more with earth. korg and one of the generals from the asgardian army were governing new asgard at the moment, and carol sure as hell wasn’t complaining because it was a lot more convenient to live with your girlfriend than to fly 300 miles to norway for a date.

as soon as carol had stepped out of the shower and thrown on some clothes val had dragged her halfway across the world and coerced her into the dirty old truck they were currently driving in. val refused to tell her what they were doing or to let her look in the back seat. carol was tempted to do it just to spite her, but val’s threats were not to be taken lightly. even as her girlfriend, carol had dodged multiple knives thrown in her general direction because she ‘had no respect for royalty’.

suddenly, carol was, quite literally, jerked from her thoughts. she was flung towards the dashboard, and only saved herself from a nasty bruise by desperately grasping the hand bar.

‘oh, so that’s what those things are for,’ she thought. they were a new upgrade since she had come back to earth, and carol was definitely finding them to be convenient. val was completely oblivious to the whole affair, throwing the door open and glancing over commandingly. 

‘carol, babe, just stay here for five minutes, okay - what are you laughing about?’

carol tried to stop herself from giggling, but took one look at her now-frustrated girlfriend and lost it all over again. soon after she and val had started dating, carol had discovered that she had a good three inches on her girlfriend. this was an immediate benefit for carol, as she found it absolutely adorable that she had to bend down slightly to kiss val when they were both standing. val didn’t like it quite as much.

carol truly hadn’t realized how high above the ground pickup trucks were until this very moment. however, she decided it was very relevant information as she stared down at her girlfriend. finally, she managed to get out between the giggles,

‘i can’t believe that i decided to date the shortest avenger’. val’s eyes widened and she let out a mock gasp of offense before slamming shut the door and opening the back one instead.

quickly, she gathered the stuff piled in the back seat and told carol to ‘sit down and shut up for five minutes’ before shutting the door. carol felt rather than heard val jump into the back of the pickup. idly, she turned up the radio, humming along to some lyrics about thunder and ashes.

the song changed, then changed again before val knocked on carol’s window with a grin on her face. carol rolled it down and leaned out of it.

‘did you want something from me?’ she asked innocently, dodging the light punch that came her way and stepping out of the car. immediately carol grabbed her hand, and they began to walk slowly around the truck.

‘okay, before you look, i just want you to promise not to laugh at me’ val said, her smile a little softer now and edged with something that looked an awful lot like anxiety. carol laughed and nudged her with her shoulder.

‘of course i’m not gonna judge you, babe. i just hope that you didn’t drag us out to the middle of nowhere for no good -’ carol’s voice died in her throat as they rounded the corner of the pickup.

the truck bed was layered with blankets and pillows. there was a bag of carol’s favorite chips and some arizona tea (how fitting). carol stared, mouth agape, until val squeezed her hand. val looked a little bit apprehensive and a little bit proud, a look that she didn’t think anyone else would be able to pull off.

‘so, what do you think?’ val asked, grinning shyly and grabbing carol’s other hand. ‘please tell me you like it. i thought that you might miss the stars, i mean, i know i miss them and i only saw them through three layers of glass, so i brought us out here so we can look at them. oh, and supposedly there’s going to be a meteor shower, and i figured that, well, you might like that. oh, and, don’t worry, i brought two bottles of vodka, too. ’ val began to blush as she talked, and carol suppressed a smile through val’s ramblings. 

how did this woman not see that she was perfect, in every single way?

‘val, can i kiss you?’ she murmured once val had stopped talking, stepping a little bit closer. val relaxed and nodded, and carol kissed her deeply. finally, once they had both run out of air, carol pulled away and leaned her forehead against val’s.

‘this is, without a doubt, the most romantic and thoughtful thing anyone has ever done for me’ she panted, and val beamed in response. there was something else that carol wanted to say, something that had wormed its way up through her stomach and made a home by her heart, but instead she just kissed val lightly before jumping up into the truck bed.

carol realized, somewhere in between val tangling their legs as she curled into carol’s chest and when the shooting stars began to fall through the open desert sky, that this was the happiest she had felt in a long, long time.

[tl;dr they got tipsy on arizona tea spiked with vodka and i got inspired by aristotle and dante discover the secrets of the universe]


	3. this dream isn't feeling sweet, we're reeling through the midnight streets

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> haha i wrote an angsty one because i'm like that. also i've been binging b99 so summer is still good.
> 
> title from ribs by lorde (i love her music so much)

carol’s eyes snapped open, taking in the darkness of the room around her. the sheets were twisted around her legs, and the cool air that was filtered through the entire compound raised shivers along her thighs. however, when she lazily reached over to the right side of the bed, it was cold. 

carol sat up slowly and rubbed her eyes, surveying the room. finally, her eyes lit on a dark figure hunched over by the windowsill. carol’s forehead creased, distressed. her suspicions were confirmed when the figure’s shoulders shuddered, and a quiet gasp sliced through the silence like a sword.

carol padded silently over to the window, whispering as she sat down across from her girlfriend,

‘you okay, babe?’ 

val’s head shot up, and carol’s heart clenched a little when she saw the tear tracks that glistened in the moonlight. her eyes looked like they swallowed up the night itself, lined with silver and gleaming with sadness. ‘hey, what’s wrong?’ she reached towards val and grasping her hand.

‘did i every tell you why i like to be called val?’ she asked instead, and carol shook her head hesitantly. val seemed very delicate right now, as if she could be shattered at any moment. maybe it was the way her shoulders trembled slightly, or guilty look in her eyes, but there was something about val that made carol want to wrap her up in her arms and hold her tightly. for now, though, she just listened.

‘i used to be part of a whole race of people called the valkyrie. our job was to, well, protect asgard’s people from any threats. we were renowned across the galaxy as the finest soldiers in existence, and sometimes simply our presence could win a battle. i, actually,’ val laughed a little, giving a weak smile to carol that didn’t quite reach her eyes, as if she was stalling, ‘once met a man who threw down his weapons as soon as i jumped off my pegasus. but then, something shifted. i bet thor probably told you about his sister, hela?’ 

carol nodded once, having a sinking feeling about where this was going. she didn’t know the entire story, all thor had told her was that val was the only valkyrie left and that hela had something to do with it. val was getting more and more teary. her eyes were glassy, like she was reliving the memories, silver lines leaking slowly out of her eyes.

‘well, she turned against odin. she believed that asgard should rule over all seven realms, with her as the queen. odin, obviously, disagreed, and sent the valkyrie to kill her. and, carol, we tried, i promise, we tried so hard, but she killed them, all of them,’ 

val was crying harder now, voice rising slowly with each word, but she continued stubbornly with her story, ‘she threw a knife at me, right at me. i thought i was dead, but my partner, astrid, she dove in front of me. hela thought i was dead, i should be dead, just like my sisters. she killed all of them.’ at this point she was shouting, squeezing carol’s hand hard. finally, she stopped, chest heaving.

the room was quiet for a moment, except for val breathing heavily and sniffling slightly. carol counted one, two, three, four five - and just like that, val was sobbing, and she threw herself into carol’s arms. carol pressed her nose into val’s hair and whispered consolations as val finally released what must be centuries of trauma.

eventually, val’s tears stopped, and they shifted so carol’s arms were around her girlfriend and val was straddling carol. val had her forehead tucked into the nook at the juncture between carol’s neck and her shoulder, and carol could feel the shallow but calm breaths of warm air that came every three seconds. 

‘i don’t use the name brunhilde anymore because all it does is remind me of everyone i failed. that was the name given to me by the valkyrie, and i wore it with pride, but now i’m the only valkyrie left. so instead, i took our name to represent not just myself, but all of my people. and maybe, one day, when i finally cross over into valhalla, they’ll forgive me.’

carol pressed her lips to val’s forehead, hot tears dripping down her cheeks once more. she drew in a shaky breath and let it out slowly, trying to figure out how to articulate what she wanted to say. that thing that was snaked around her heart reared its head, and carol was so close to letting those three words slip from her mouth. instead, she murmured into val’s ear,

‘val, you have no idea how much i appreciate you. it’s been a long time since i’ve cared for someone this deeply, and i just want to say that i promise you, every time you are doubting yourself, you can come to me. because you deserve everything you have in this life, val, everything and more, and don’t you ever forget that, okay?’

val smiled for the first time since they had begun this conversation, and it was small, but it was there. carol considered it a win. then carol yawned widely, and val giggled.

‘come on, let’s go back to bed’

[tl;dr everyone’s just a little broken and val need someone to pick up the pieces]


	4. i think that i've been dead since the start, haven't felt so much in my heart

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> okay so i am so sorry y'all. i kept on forgetting to post this and then things got out of hand and school started and now here we are. i honestly don't know when i'll have time to update next. BUT
> 
> it's another slightly angsty chapter (i'm sorry) but hopefully you enjoy.
> 
> title from hiccup by versache (a wholesome bop, i recommend)

only eight months after the blip, or un-blip, carol supposed, there was a party thrown in celebration of the avengers. what was left of them, anyways. 

though carol lived at the compound, she hadn’t seen a lot of the surviving heroes. most of them decided to spend as much time as possible focusing on the family and friends that they had lost.

this dinner had been planned for quite a few months. despite what one may think, having to track down people from all corners of the earth and beyond was a little bit tricky. however, carol wasn’t exactly sure it was worth it. 

all of the heroes that had been at the battle against thanos were merged into one room, along with other important earth officials and such. though there was an underlying current of chatter, there was a definite tension, a sort of unease, draped across the guests. 

carol had been caught in a conversation between clint, who was apparently one of the original six avengers back in 2012, and the witch, whose name carol learned was wanda. carol quickly figured out that the two were close. wanda seemed to be clinging to clint like an almost father figure, and carol wondered how much, exactly, this twenty year old girl had lost. 

every so often she spotted val a couple conversations over. her girlfriend was caught up in a discussion of some european law that was affecting new asgard with a diplomatic official from france. she smiled, just a little, at the sight of her before tuning back into the conversation before her. half paying attention, she idly asked,

‘so, clint, you were in the original six avengers, right? you must have known natasha!’ what carol had hoped would be a nice conversation starter backfired almost instantaneously. clint’s faced washed over in a state of pure anguish, eyes lighting up with emotions carol couldn’t begin to decipher, and wanda shrank in on herself, sliding closer to clint. after a few long seconds of carol internally kicking herself, clint spoke, his gravelly voice grating against her guilt.

‘yeah...nat was my partner at s.h.i.e.l.d., and my best friend,’ carol winced, and their small circle fell quiet once more. wanda muttered something about going over to talk to someone named sharon and practically ran off, and clint lifted his empty glass in a mock cheers before defeatedly walking over to the drinks table. 

carol’s cheeks were burning, and she made a beeline for her girlfriend, tugging her outside right before the diplomat was beginning a long-winded speech. carol burst through the glass doors and practically sprinted over to the balcony’s edge. 

the cool air felt more refreshing than a freezing shower, and carol could feel herself calm down. the guests prattled on inside, white noise filtering through the half-open doors. val lingered by the entrance to the balcony, brow creased as she bit her lip worriedly. 

‘babe, are you okay?’ her voice broke through carol’s reverie, and she turned around and walked closer to val.

‘yeah, i’m sorry for pulling you out like that,’ carol ran her hand through her hair and sighed.

‘don’t worry about it, you probably saved me an hour-long discussion about agrarian culture laws in norway or some boring bullshit like that,’ val snickered lightly, but her forehead hadn’t relaxed yet. ‘do you want to talk about it?’

‘i would talk about it if i could, but it seems like everyone it hell-bent on pretending that the past five years didn’t even happen,’ the words spilled out of carol before she could stop them, ‘and it’s so goddamn uncomfortable in there. half of those ‘esteemed guests’ are actually just emotionally traumatized kids and the other half have just watched their best friends die. it’s just so...ugh, i don’t even know,’

‘fucked up,’ val said, filling in the blank. ‘it’s just all so fucked up.’

‘yeah, exactly,’ carol laughed uncomfortably. she felt empty now that she had gotten that off of her chest, like some knot of tension had just been worked out. impulsively, she grabbed val’s hand and beamed at her girlfriend.

val grinned back and squeezed quickly, and they both gazed into each other’s eyes like some sort of cheesy romance movie. inside, some music started up, a slow, easy song. carol smiled a little wider, pulling her hand out of val’s grasp.

‘milady,’ she bowed low and stretched out her hand again, ‘ may i have this dance?’ val laughed, shaking her head slightly.

‘first, it's actually your majesty' val said, and carol put her hands up in a fake apology, 'and second, of course,’ she responded, pulling carol close. val placed her arms around her neck, and carol slid her hands to val’s waist. she pulled her girlfriend flush against her and they leaned their foreheads onto one another’s. 

she had a sudden flashback to her middle school dances, swaying uncomfortably with some boy three inches shorter than her whose hands were slowly migrating up and feeling so wholly out of place, like something was wrong with her for not liking this. dancing with val was much better, all soft edges and slightly smudged lipstick and that woody perfume that val saved for special occasions. maybe it was cologne. 

it felt so right that for a moment she couldn’t breathe right, had to send her eyes to the heavens and count the stars until she had regained control of her lungs. as she looked back into val’s chocolate eyes she felt those goddamned words bubbling up inside her, a confession of something she didn’t know yet, and she panickedly tamped it deep down into a squashed ball in the corner of her heart. 

one day, they would be ready, but right now they were still healing. and by god if carol couldn’t wait for that day to come.

[tl;dr carol’s a gay mess who can’t handle emotions but who are we kidding, neither of them can. also i just keep adding in stupid romantic tropes and it’s not gonna stop]


	5. i'm way too young to lie here forever

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> quick q&a:
> 
> YES it has been literally 5ever since i've updated this and NO i haven't been doing anything i've just been lacking inspiration and then i couldn't even bring myself to do anything productive until right this moment and YES it is trash and NO i did not get this beta'd so all the mistakes are entirely of my own making.
> 
> i am so, so sorry that this is so late. as mentioned above, i've been having a bit of a writing crisis. school sucked, and then this whole mess shook me up, to make a long story short i am very apologetic that it took this long to write. hopefully this can drive me to the end and i can feel at least a little bit accomplished with myself. also, this might just be bad, but here we go.
> 
> title from bang! by ajr

oh, carol regrets her decision. maria hill, someone who carol had discovered shared many of the traits she herself had (read: a dangerous craving for adventure, which often translated to near-death experiences) as well as a past military experience, became one of carol’s closest confidantes, and carol blames her 100% for this whole endeavor. 

on one of their many nights at some small, shitty bar where they drank cheap beer and lost money on darts, carol told maria that she felt unsettled, being back on earth for the longest time since, well, 1990, and maria’s admittedly slurred although wise response was to “grow a pair and face your pain”. (of course, carol had to take that suggestion with a grain of salt, as immediately after maria challenged a man two times her size to a bar fight and promptly shot him in the leg).

however, something in it struck a chord in carol, and the next morning she woke up with a nasty headache and a craving for a word carol hadn’t thought of before: closure. 

all of this is to say that carol now found herself near-hyperventilation in the bathroom of her ex-girlfriend's house. 

when carol landed in new orleans, she had high hopes. it was a two-night trip, should be easy. plus, val was off doing a serious business venture into thoughts of trade with norway, so really, it was perfect timing. and in the beginning, things were going well. she and maria definitely had a few awkward moments, and the car ride from the airport to the maria’s house was strung along by small talk, but soon all of it smoothed out and they got back in their rhythm again; it was just danvers and rambeau, rambeau and danvers; it was just like before.

since monica was joining them for dinner, she worried things would be, well, horribly awkward, but it actually got easier. maria and monica introduced her to their new inside jokes, and they played charades (they used to play charades with monica, when she was still a three-year old and didn’t know how to pronounce her r’s). carol made a joke about how much monica had improved, and everyone was laughing, and everything was good, and in that one golden moment, carol broke. 

carol couldn’t really remember how she got to the bathroom. hell, she didn;t even know where the bathroom was, it was more that her feet knew where it was and took her there against her own will. all she could think about was how much she had wanted this life, this beautiful life with maria and monica. all carol could see behind her eyelids was the bejewled backsplash of everything that she should have had, and she was assaulted with snapshots of the past she couldn’t remember. 

the only thing grounding her was the cold ceramic of the bathtub, dark and cool against her burning-hot skin, and she jerkily forced a window open before sinking back down to rest against the porcelain. guilt and want conflicted in rolling waves inside of her, and all of a sudden carol wasn’t sure who she was. was she this daring, wild-eyed pilot who lived with (was in love with) her best friend, who raised a daughter and got old with her wife, or was she a soldier, built from bricks by someone she didn’t want to be born from?

the jarring vibrations made carol snap her eyes open, and she clumsily grabbed her phone in her back pocket and winced at the brightness of the screen. blinking furiously, carol could only read the

val <3

how’s it going, babe?

she stared at the message for a moment, as if it was in some indecipherable language she couldn’t possibly understand, when all of a sudden her hands were taken over by some subconscious part of her and she held the phone to her ear and listened to it ring. 

“babe, is something wrong?” even val’s voice calmed a little bit of carol’s panic, and she felt the rim of the bathtub dig into her spine and she smiled a little bit into the phone.

“uh, not really. i just wanted to hear your voice,” carol knew that she was lying, and she knew that val knew that she was lying, but she also knew that val understood.

“yeah?” fuck, her voice sounded so soft, and carol knew that if it were anyone else she would feel pitied, but with val, she just felt loved. “how’s new orleans? i don’t know much about earth, but from what i can tell there’s a lot of booze there and, well, you know me…” carol laughed lightly, and she imagined that all the way across the world, val was doing the same. 

“well,” val continued, and carol could hear the small smile that infected her voice, “i wish you could’ve been there with me today,”.

“oh?”.

“yeah. you wouldn’t have believed it. i thought it might have been a good idea to bring korg with me, since he seems to put everyone at ease? well, we weren't even there for five minutes when i hear an explosion in the middle of a conversation with the ambassador himself, and…”.

carol, though invested in val’s story about how korg almost started world war III, found herself thanking each and every lucky star that val somehow knew that what carol really needed was to hear her voice. sometimes she didn’t know what she would do without her.

about fifteen minutes later, carol exited the bathroom and wandered back to the living room, surprised to find maria alone there.

“monica went to go and grab more beers from the garage,” maria said, and though her tone was casual, her eyes asked carol, are you okay? carol gave an imperceptible nod, and maria smiled gently, patting the seat next to her. 

“yeah,” she whispered as she gingerly sat down, and they looked at each other for a moment. maria’s face looked the same, and yet so very different at the same time. her cheekbones were the same, and her smile, but there were small signs of age on her face as well, crows feet and gray hair, that cemented the differences between them. maria shocked carol out of her reverie, smiling as she asked,

“i heard you talking on the phone in there. don’t worry, i didn’t hear anything personal, but i couldn’t help but overhear a woman’s voice,”. carol blushed and looked down for a moment before looking into maria’s eyes. instead of finding anger, or betrayal, like she was expecting, maria’s eyes held only love, and carol felt some inner part of herself relax.

“you wanna tell me about her?” maria asked, and carol couldn’t help but match her smile. maybe she could never have the life she wanted before, but she could make a new one now.

[tl;dr carol has a lot of residual guilt left over from her admittedly tragic experiences with love, but val is here to save the day and be an absolute queen while doing it]

**Author's Note:**

> comments and kudos always appreciated!
> 
> comments really make me wanna write and summer is slowly slipping away so any positive feedback is like ascending to the seventh tier of heaven itself.
> 
> -winnie


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